Observational Design Flashcards
observational design involves…
unstructured / structured observations
behavioural categories
sampling procedures
what do structured / unstructured observations refer to?
the way that observations are recorded
other types of observation refer to the environment that these observations occur in
structured observations
researchers uses set categories of behaviour with various systems to record behaviour and organise observations
behavioural categories and sampling procedures are used to structure observations
structured observation evaluation
- produces more reliable data
* behavioural categories are subjective
unstructured observation
all relevant behaviour is observed and recorded but there is no systematic way of doing this
unstructured observation evaluation
- too much info to record, not all is relevant which makes it hard to analyse
- behaviours recorded will be the most eye catching and visible, not necessarily the most relevant or important ones
- detailed data, includes unexpected behaviours found to be important
- can be used where research has not been conducted before as a kind of pilot study to see what behaviours might be recorded using a structured system
behavioural categories
recording behaviours in an objective and systemic way using various codes and categories
dividing a target behaviour such as aggression into a subset of specific and operationalised behaviours
should avoid waste basket (irrelevant) categories of behaviour, only relevant behaviours should be covered and recorded
should be mutually exclusive (should not have to mark 2 categories at one time)
should be objective, the observer should not have to make inferences about the behaviour, they should simply be able to record explicit actions
sampling procedures
sampling is the method used to select participants (random, opportunity, etc) OR the method used to record behaviours in an observation (time and event sampling)
- event sampling — an observational technique that involves recording/counting the number of times a certain behaviour occurs
- time sampling — an observational techniques that involves recording the behaviours in a given time frame (e.g. every 30 seconds the observer notes what the individual is doing)
event sampling evaluation
able to focus on specific behaviours
ignores other possibly important behaviours
time sampling evaluation
difficult to record everything if a lot of behaviours happen at once
avoids overlooking other behaviours as it doesn’t focus on specifics
EXAMPLE: behavioural categories and sampling
Topál (1998)
Topál (1998) used the strange situation technique to explore the attachments between dogs and their owners
owners and their dogs went through the episodes of the strange situation and their behaviour was videotaped so that the behaviours could be analysed afterwards
there were eight behavioural categories including playing when with stranger, physical contact with owner and exploration with owner
the observers sampled the behaviour every 10 seconds, writing each category on a scale of 1 to 5 with 5 meaning that they were very confident about their observation
EXAMPLE: behavioural categories
Ekman (1978)
Ekman (1978) developed the coding system to record non-verbal behaviours which can be used to investigate what expressions are shown on a persons face — for example, when they are lying
this is known as the facial action coding system (FACS) and includes behaviours such as outer brow raise, nose wrinkle, lip tighten, head back and squint
